Only days after the Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers before a TV audience of 111 million people, an NBC executive said the network will be looking to charge more than the nearly $3 million per 30-second spot Fox got this year.
"Obviously with the ratings and what it's done, we're going to push price," said Marianne Gambelli, president for network ad sales at NBC. "Where it goes, I'm not exactly sure yet, but we've got a lot of conversations going on, we have a lot of activity and there's a lot of demand for it."
Gambelli spoke as part of a panel discussion at the Association of National Advertisers' TV and Everything Video Forum in New York Thursday.
Bill Koenigsberg, CEO and founder of Horizon Media, noted that it is getting harder and harder and harder to aggregate mass audiences for marketers the way the Super Bowl does.
"It is an incredible venue. When we executed the Google spot [in last year game] we saw what it did for them," Koenigsberg said. "Done right, there's no better venue. I thought this year people tried a little bit too hard. It's really tough from a creative standpoint, but it's a great vehicle. I think it's getting more valuable than it's ever been."
Edward Gold, ad director for State Farm, compared the Super Bowl to the World Series, noting that having two small market teams would depress the ratings for baseball. But despite having teams from Green Bay and Pittsburgh on the fields, the Super Bowl remains an event.
"I don't see that changing going forward. It's its own special thing," Gold said.
During the discussion, the group, also including David Levy of Turner Broadcasting and Pam Zucker of MediaVest, touched on a number of topics, two of which were referred to as the holy grail at one point or another.
One was better measurement of video, including online video, obtained from sources including set top boxes. The other was mobile advertising, especially with more than 50% of the U.S. population now owning smart phones.
As for the importance of 3D to programmers and advertisers, the general sentiment was wait till next year.
